A broad crypto market slide worsened at the start of U.S. trading hours as bitcoin (BTC) neared the $93,000 level, leading to a fallback across all major tokens.
Ether, Solana’s SOL, Cardano’s ADA, xrp (XRP) and bnb (BNB) fell as much as 16%, while memecoin dogecoin (DOGE) fell over 27%, data shows. Crypto market capitalization is down more than 11% in the past 24 hours, one of the worst single-day drops in the year.
Some traders say a hawkish tone in this week’s FOMC meeting flipped market sentiment ahead of the new year.
“The Fed rate cut itself was already expected and priced in as markets hinged on the Fed’s outlook for next year, which was less optimistic than expected and included only two rate cuts instead of the four that were previously expected,” Jeff Mei, COO at crypto exchange BTSE, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message. “Traders should be cautious until inflation is tamed and we see more concrete Trump policies in the coming year.”
But in the mid to long run, we believe that monetary and fiscal stimulus policies in both the US and other parts of the world will ultimately expand liquidity. This will boost crypto markets, and especially Bitcoin as it becomes more of a safe haven asset akin to gold,” Mei added.